The Verbal Community and the Societal Construction of Consciousness

Abstract

; Skinner's concept of the "verbal community" is developed as a link between the private experiences of individuals, on the one hand, and societal structures, practices and conventions, on the other. The verbal community enables the individual to have a discriminated consciousness of private experience, but since the verbal conununity is itself a historically constructed entity, then our most personal inner experience is also socio-historically defined. The nature of these relationships between society, the verbal community and the individual are explored from the standpoint of a transformational model of individual-society relationships, using Grarnsci's concept of ideological hegemony to articulate the ways that consent to domination is created and reproduced in the lived experience of society's members. This paper is about how human consciousness, and particularly the private experiences of individuals, can be understood in relation to social organization. How does what we think and feel relate to the society we live in? And how might such relationships be best described and understood? There are some practical reasons for attempting an analysis of this relationship, and it is particularly relevant to an understanding of the relationships between emotional phenomena and social or political change. Reich (1942/1975), for example, tried to provide an account of the rise of fascism in Germany which drew on the conceptual tools of both historical materialism and psychoanalysis in analyzing the links between emotion, sexuality, political affiliation, and class. Whether or not we find that account plausible, many have seen the need for an analysis that bridges the worlds of personal experience (psychology) and the social system (social theory). In OUf day, this has relevance to feminist analyses of social relations and of sexuality. For example, how possible is it to overcome our socialization within a culture of gender-associated dominance and subordination and to renegotiate our relationships equitably? Moreover, an analysis of the interdependence of private experience and social relations might pave the way for therapeutic approaches to mental distress that take account of its considerable societal causation (Brown & Harris, 1978) and definition (Burton, 1983), while incorporating insights into the nature of the experience (e. g ., AUTI-IOR'S NOTE: We are grateful to Jerry Ulman for his enthusiastic encouragement to submit this article. Address all correspondence regarding this article to Mark Burton,